Win awesome prizes in categories you didnt even know you were participating in!
As well as $25 Store credit for the best pair and 3 best pieces.

Deadline for signups is Saturday January 19th at 11:59pm EST
Deadline for getting your partner a sketch is Saturday January 26th at 11:59pm EST
Deadline for submissions is Wednesday February 20th at 11:59PM EST

Trust me, you will want to participate in this one. It will be awesome!

NOTE -This is mainly about the art portal. The audio portal works similarly, but for questions about the specifics of the audio scouting system please see an audio mod for advice.

Scouting FAQ and guide because to many of you dont seem to quite get it. Feel free to ask further questions here and I will add them to the list if they are good enough. I will answer all of them regardless.

First the 3 fundamental rules of scouting.
1. DO NOT ASK TO BE SCOUTED! ANYWHERE! EVER!
2. Only accept scout requests from users who you don't think will be pruned.
3. DO NOT ASK TO BE SCOUTED!

Q. What is Scouting?
It is a system implemented in the NG art portal that lets users decide who is allowed to post art in the portal. Only scouted users can submit art to the portal. All users can submit work to their user page though, and anyone can see the work (assuming they visit your user page), even if its not marked for the portal.

Q. How do I scout people?
First you have to be scouted. Then you can find any user who has at least 4 pieces that you feel is good enough for the art portal and send them a scout request. You can send 4 scout requests a day, if someone rejects your request you will be granted another one for that day.

Q. How do I get Scouted?
First, make good art, people will notice you if you are good. You must have at least 4 pieces to get scouted. When someone wants to scout you, you will be sent a request via PM. You can then choose to accept or deny their request.

Q. Can I get requests from multiple people?
Yes. Pick the one you like. Make sure its an artist you feel wont get pruned though.

Q. Pruned? Whats that?
Its when an artist is removed from the art portal, when this happens any one who they have scouted will be pruned along with them. Think of it like a tree branch, anything supported by that branch gets knocked off with it.

Q. When I've been pruned, can I be re-scouted?
Yes.

Q. What would make me get pruned?
Submitting rule breaking work, or not having good enough work.

Q.It says my scouting privileges have been taken away? What gives?
You have been 'castrated'.

Q. What the hell is 'castrated'?
Its a term the mods use for when they remove a users scouting privileges. You get castrated by scouting users who break the rules, or have bad work. Sometimes all it takes is one user under you to cause you to get castrated. It depends on what their infraction was. If you scout an obvious thief, or someone who submits real porn chances are you will get castrated. It might take scouting a few users with bad art to get you castrated though. When you are castrated you are still allowed to submit work and be in the portal, you will also keep any good scouts you may have had.

Q. Will I ever get my privileges back?
Depends on how bad you were at scouting. Contact a mod for more details on your castration.

Q. I have 4 submissions, but I'm not getting scouted, whats up with that?
Either your work isn't good enough, or you haven't marked the submissions as public (viewable in the art portal) Only public marked submissions count towards the 4 you need to get scouted.

Q. How do I mark work as public?
When you submit a piece, there is a box towards the bottom, check it.

Q. This scouting system seems flawed, art is to varied to be considered good enough.
The system has a few bugs here and there, but its not flawed. Any user who is scouted that can see the unscouted section will see how much bad art the system keeps out of the portal. As for good art being a matter of opinion, yes its true everyone has different tastes, but we are trying to make the overall quality of the art portal be far above that of most other art showcases, so we try to have only the best work up.

Q. Ok, I've been scouted, and I can see a list of recommended users? What is this list?
Its a list of users who have the most recommendations to be scouted. HOWEVER just because they are on this list doesn't mean they are good scouting candidates. It is merely a slightly helpful list of people you might have missed in the unscouted section. The list updates about every day or so. If you are scouted you will have to use up your scout requests for that day in order to recommend users.

Q.How do I recommend users?
Anyone can recommend a user for the art portal, doesn't matter how many pieces they have. All you have to do is click the recommend user button on their art page. If they get enough recommendations and are eligible for scouting they will be added to that list. You can only recommend a user once, but you can recommend as many users a day as you want.

Remember, feel free to PM any art mod if you have questions about the art portal, but make sure its not one that is answered in the rules or in this list.

!!!!ORNERY'S PERSONAL 'GETTING SCOUTED' ADVICE!!!!
So you have 4 pieces, and are still stuck in scouting limbo? Fear not there are ways to remedy it.
STEP 1. First make sure you have at least 4 of your pieces marked for public viewing.
STEP 2. Keep submitting work, everytime you make a new piece, you get put at the front of the unscouted section, most scouters are lazy and only check the first 2 pages or so of that section.
STEP 3. Make better work. Probably the real reason why you arent getting scouted is your stuff sucks, make better stuff.
STEP 4. Delete your bad stuff. If you have 2 good pieces but 18 shitty ones, people will ignore your good work and think that it was either stolen or a fluke, prove that you can consistantly make good stuff.
STEP 5. DON'T STEAL ANYTHING! If you get caught stealing work, or breaking any of the Art Portal rules chances are you have fucked all chances of getting scouted, or remaining scouted. The mods know when you steal something and remember it, and once you do it and get caught good luck getting into the art portal because we will be suspicious of anything you make.

The person who's idea was picked randomly out of a hat is....SevenSeize... and her abstract black and white patterns idea.

This normally isn't my style at all so its going to be interesting to try something abstract for a change.

Sorry this took so long. Lot of stuff to do and vacations and shit.

Probably not exactly what everyone was expecting but hey, I don't normally do abstract stuff for a reason. I tried to just turn my mind off and just go with it, but the problem is that whenever I attempt automatic drawing or doodling all i do is end up drawing value scales and tree stumps.....